SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/7/2019
9:29 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “Magi
From The East”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt. 2:1-2
Message of the verses: “1 Now after Jesus
was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, magi from
the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, 2 “Where is He who has been born King of
the Jews? For we saw His star in the east, and have come to worship Him.’”
I
think that we are going to learn some things from this section that will be
different than what most people think that they know about these magi who came
to visit the baby Jesus, but not on the day of His birth. Magi, which many people have called “wise men”
certainly were not their when Jesus was born.
For
me to make this story known I will have to give some quotes from my commentary
that John MacArthur has written that I am following as we go through the book
of Matthew. “During the Middle Ages
legend developed that they (the magi) were kings, that they were three in
number, and that their names were Casper, Balthazar, and Melchior. Because they were thought to represent the
three sons of Noah, one of them is often pictured as an Ethiopian. A twelfth-century bishop of Cologne even
claimed to have found their skulls.”
What
we know for sure about these men is what is found in the first twelve verses of
the 2nd chapter of Matthew.
Matthew does not even tell the number of them, but I suppose because
three gifts were given by the magi to Jesus makes people think that there were
only three of them, but that is not true because Matthew does not tell us how
many magi were there. We certainly are
not told the names of these men, and we are not told how they got to Palestine,
or even the specific country which they came from. MacArthur writes “The fact that they came
from the east would have been assumed by most people in the New Testament
times, because they magi were primarily known as the priestly-political class
of the Parthians—who lived to the east of Palestine.
We
will not look at a paragraph from MacArthur’s commentary that will give us the
history of the magi. “The magi first
appear in history in the seventh century B. C. as a tribe within the Median
nation in eastern Mesopotamia. Many
historians consider them to have been Semites, which if so, made them—with the
Jews and Arabs—descendants of Noah’s son Shem.
It may also be that, like Abraham, the magi came from ancient Ur in
Chaldea. The name magi soon came in to
be associated solely with the hereditary priesthood within that tribe. The magi became skilled in astronomy and
astrology (which, in that day, were closely associated) and had a sacrificial
system that somewhat resembled the one God gave to Israel through Moses. They were involved in various occult
practices, including sorcery, and were especially noted for their ability to
interpret dreams. It is from their name
that our words magi and magician are derived.”
MacArthur
goes on: “A principal element of magian
worship was fire, and on their primary altar burned a perpetual flame, which
they claimed descended from heaven. The
magi were monotheistic, believing in the existence of only one god. Because of their monotheism, it was easy for
the magi to adapt to the teaching of the sixth-century B.C. Persian religious
leader named Zoroaster, who believed in a single god. Ahura Mazda, and a cosmic struggle between
good and evil. Darius the Great established Zoroastrianism as the state
religion of Persia.”
That
is all we will do for today, but I will probably continue to quote from
MacArthur’s commentary as we begin our SD tomorrow, Lord willing.
In our quotation from “Love in Action” a
booklet written by David Jeremiah, we will be looking at a passage in the 40th
chapter of Isaiah.
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the
Lord, the Creator of the ends of the
earth, neither faints nor is
weary. His understanding is
unsearchable. He gives power to
the weak, and to those who have no might
He increases
strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
and the young men shall utterly fall,
but those
who wait on the Lord shall renew their
strength; they shall mount up with
wings like eagles, they shall run
and not be weary, they shall
walk and not faint.
Isaiah
40:28-31
12/7/2019 10:06 AM
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